How Fake Friends Cause Anxiety And Sabotage Your Success

“There are two kinds of power you have to fight. The first is the money, and that’s just our system. The other is the people close around you, knowing when to accept their criticism, knowing when to say no.”

Martin Scorsese (American Director)

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.”

Napoleon Hill (American Author, Think And Grow Rich)

“The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors, so choose friends who have healthy habits.”

Dan Buettner (American Author, The Blue Zones)

Success is contagious.

Good and bad behavior is contagious too.

One study found that emotions circulate through social networks in patterns similar to what’s seen in epidemiological models of the flu virus.

Numerically, each positive person you surround yourself with increases your chances of being positive by 11%.

But, each negative person you let into your life will more than double your chances of being negative.

Recent research also shows that even negative traits, like obesity and smoking, are transferred like a virus from person to person.

For example, if one of your friends becomes obese, you have a 171% chance of also becoming obese.

Your circle of influence is more powerful than you might realize.

Many of us get lazy about it.

It’s not just about protecting yourself against negative influences or people with bad habits — it’s about choosing the right kind of support and the right kind of dialogue with them to protect your progress and success.

How Good Friendships Increase Success

A study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that sharing good news with positive people in your social network resulted in “increased daily positive affect and well-being, above and beyond the impact of the positive event itself and other daily events.”

When people you share with are positive in return, those impacts are amplified and extended.

Good people in your life make your highs even higher and make them last longer.

Like any good commercial drug, but better.

Who you share your time and life events with is as impactful as what you share.

The Journal of Human Communication found that when people talked to their friends about negative events and received poor support, they showed an increase in anxiety as well as a decrease in their level of satisfaction with that friendship.

In other words, you’ll feel worse and add friendship drama.

Those who shared the same and received more positive support felt better about their friendships, but still ruminated and felt anxious about the events.

Ideally, you’d be surrounded by positive people that celebrate your positive moments and are supportive, but limit in indulging in the ruminating sharing of negative ones.

The Journal of Marketing Research added that the closer we are to someone, the more likely we are to share more negative information than if we didn’t feel as connected to them.

Like gossip, for instance.

This means that the kind of friends you have and what you choose to share with them will directly impact your own perception and mood.

Your best friendships will have boundaries around useless, negative content and excess ruminating, and be heavy in positive support and encouragement.

They’ll challenge you without belittling you and reciprocate when it comes to celebrating achievements.

The One Friend You Need To Kick Out Of Your Life

Who you hang out with matters.

If you hang out with people who push you to work harder, think more intelligently, and hold yourself to a higher standard, you’re going to live a better life.

But if you hang out with people who cut you down and belittle your accomplishments to keep you in your place, you are going to live a more miserable life.

Psychological warfare is on the table and they’ll try and make you guilty, indebted, needy, and weak.

To serve their ego and feed their need for control.

They might be your boss, your high school friend or your high school sweetheart.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them — they aren’t good for you, and they have to go.

The longer you keep people this overtly toxic in your life, the longer you’ll be held back.

There won’t be room for anyone positive and encouraging to come into your life because the toxic sludge is filling up every corner.

If you don’t wise up to their manipulation tactics and take action, these people will railroad all efforts in your life and you will go no where.

And be nobody.

On an indefinite basis.

This is where low self-worth, anxiety, and hopelessness take over and these people act as an IV supply for it.

You might even start to become like them.

Look — you don’t need a bunch of mindless groupies following you around and cheering your every move. You shouldn’t be that fragile. But you do need a network of people in your life who are positive, successful, and who also challenge you but not in ways that crush your spirit or make you look like a fool. The only way to keep achieving bigger and better accomplishments in your own life is to cut out immature people who try to belittle what you achieve. At the same time, you have to be mature enough to praise other people’s accomplishments and to freely help them achieve more. If you want achievement in your life, start respecting achievement no matter who it comes from.

To learn more about how fake friends cause anxiety and sabotage your success, and to get instant access to exclusive training videos, case studies, insider documents, and my private online network, get on the Escape Plan wait list.